Major General Sir Robert Murdoch Smith KCMG FRSE (18 August 1835 – 3 July 1900) was a Scottish engineer, archaeologist and diplomat.

In September 1855, Smith was gazetted to Lieutenant and in the following October was chosen to lead a small group of Royal Engineers bound to help Charles Thomas Newton's archaeological mission to the remains of the ancient civilisation at Knidos in Turkey.

Smith was able to replace, examine and move each of the remaining stones, and to create a detailed report on the supposed construction and its historical context.

[3] Smith was very interested in archaeology and he decided to fund another two-year expedition to excavate the lost settlements of Cyrenaica in North Africa.

He obtained this appointment following two years he spent assisting with the difficult task of installing the 1,200-mile-long wire required to join Tehran to London.

[7] Richard was known as Rišār Khan and had initially worked as a translator, but he was involved in a variety of tasks from photography to balloon manufacture for the Shah.

His proposers were William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, Robert James Blair Cunynghame, Alexander Crum Brown and John Chiene.